Anastomosis, the surgical joining of two luminal structures within the body, is a common and clinically vital procedure used by nearly all surgeons. For example, anastomosis procedures can be utilized for the end-to-end joining of severed blood vessels, lymphatic vessels, and ducts. Typical anastomosis of large vessels can be carried out by skilled surgeons with relative ease. However, as the vessels to be anastomosed become smaller or less firm, surgeons experience increasing rates of complications and failure, even among those who are highly specialized and extensively trained in vascular- or micro-surgery. In addition to their small size, severed micro-vessels tend to contract (arteries) or have collapsed ends (veins, lymphatic vessels, ducts), making their suturing extremely difficult and ultimately limiting applicability of microsurgical reconstructive techniques and procedures.
Degradable stents and tissue adhesives have been developed as alternatives to classic suturing methods of anastomosis. Degradable intraluminal stents have the advantage of being biocompatible and easily fabricated to match the size of the vessel. In some examples, these materials can be eliminated from the vessel following the anastomosis either by inducing an active temperature-dependent gel-sol phase transition or by relying on dissolution of the material by blood. However, while these materials do facilitate the suturing procedure, their utility is diminished by the requirement for careful control of temperature and/or the long dissolution times required for their removal.
Thus, there is a need for new materials that can be applied rapidly and used to support a vessel in an open configuration for an anastomosis procedure, and which can be degraded or removed without dependency on temperature or slow dissolution by blood.